As I drive to work each day, I take note of the gardens as I pass, and I must say that they are as diverse and assorted as people.

There is one garden which has hedges and small shrubs lined in perfect symmetry and every bush is clipped with a precise evenness. There is another garden that looks like a mysterious overgrown sanctuary of secret pathways and shady intimate havens. I want to stop and admire the blooms in the country cottage yard, the one with the gorgeous roses that fill their space with colour and a sweet perfume and then there are the gardens with tall gums that provide shelter and a nature fuelled harmony of birds and cicadas.

I love them all and as I think about them, I realise it is my chance to see people from God’s perspective. We are all varied and unique and most importantly we are all as interesting as each other to God.

I may never be the manicured estate with every blade cut at the perfect length and I may never produce superb flora displays like the Jacaranda’s purple blooms, but I am what I am and I am still as equally beautiful and fascinating.

If I want to be something or someone else, then I am denying the very who God made me and the world would miss out on what I have to offer.

I wouldn’t want every garden that I go past to be the same and I think God agrees. I am a one of a kind; just like my garden and that is a good thing.

I wonder if a garden was absolutely horrible with noxious weeds and poison ivy and stinging thistles and one can't venture there because of infestations of dangerous snakes and poisonous spiders, how would we view it.
I wonder too if there are people like that and how would God view them.

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Penelope

8/7/2013 04:26:09

Nick, we may have been made in God's image but He is so much more merciful, more forgiving, more loving than we can ever be, so although He may see an untidy garden/person He will rectify the matter, He will gather us to Himself. He will weed out our problems and make us more like Himself. Rememba the man in the cross beside Jesus or even the paraplegic who was let down through the roof. Jesus forgave him not for himself but because his friends had faith. So if your garden is scruffy God will live it because the neighbours gardens are tidy.

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Nick

8/7/2013 05:07:39

So the evilest, baddest , nastiest person is still loved by God and he will rectify their character and gather them to himself. Paul said in Romans that they don't want to be rectified, that there was an enmity between them and God. That is an awful big gulf. Is God going to drag them over that gulf against their freewill. Just wondering.

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Penelope

8/7/2013 15:42:21

No Nick, He won't drag them/us. We were given free will at creation. If we chose to stay ugly, ugly we will stay. But that does not stop God from loving us. Remember Jesus died for everyone. We have to make that decision to be loved.
Its our free will that sets us apart from gardens, animals, trees, mountains. They all just do what God created them to do, to sing, to prowl, to grow, to look beautiful, to reach to the heavens...its US humans that are joining the snake on its belly on the ground. But luckily some of us stand up straight and reach to God.

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Nick

8/7/2013 16:06:57

"They all just do what God created them to do,"

I wonder why everything God created does exactly what he created them for. except us. Why did he make one part of his creation in such a way he had no control over it.
God made the world and everything in it, then handed it over to us to do with it what ever we want and he just sits there and watches us destroy his creation. It must be very difficult for him.

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Penelope

8/7/2013 16:34:04

U think Nick if He had long silver hair as he is sometimes depicted in paintings He'd be just about bald now. But we are all victims of the fallen world. Even animals etc are because we all suffer. Its the part if us that has the freewill that can be our downfall.
I was just sitting in front of my fire and a thought came to mind.
Even in an untidy overgrown garden it is possible to find a small overgrown path, overgrown with brambles, overhanging tree branches, rocks littering the path but if u persevere at the end you can find a quiet place of coolth, a quiet patch of sunlight. We just have to persevere to find that place.....maybe that is what God sees in each of us..and that is what makes Him not tear His hair out over us.

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Nick

8/7/2013 16:47:05

"U think Nick if He had long silver hair as he is sometimes depicted in paintings "

My God is a bit bigger than that. My God is totally sovereign and has complete control over everything he created and is limited by nothing, least of all man's freewill.
Are you sure God was surprised by the fallen world. Do you think he has a plan B or a plan C just in case the first one doesn't work
Maybe he is not tearing his hair out. Maybe it is all going exactly to plan. Just a thought.

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Penelope

8/7/2013 23:37:12

Hey Nick, I never said God was surprised by the fallen world and I definitely never said He had plan B or C. His ultimate plan was carried out 2000 years ago when He sent His precious Son to redeem us.
I think we must worship the same God because my God is also "totally sovereign and has complete control over everything he created", but that doesn't counteract our free will...see below

2 Timothy 2:26

And they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will.

John 8:24

I told you that you would die in your sins, for unless you believe that I am he you will die in your sins.

John 3:16

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

Mathew Henry says of 2 Timothy 2:26 Sinners are taken in a snare, and in the worst snare, because it is the devil's; they are slaves to him. And if any long for deliverance, let them remember they never can escape, except by repentance, which is the gift of God; and we must ask it of him by earnest, persevering prayer.

John 8:24
Nothing but the doctrine of Christ's grace will be an argument powerful enough, and none but the Spirit of Christ's grace will be an agent powerful enough, to turn us from sin to God; and that Spirit is given, and that doctrine is given, to work upon those only who believe in Christ.

John 3:16
Here is the condescension, the miracle, the mystery of Divine love, that God would redeem the church with his own blood.

John 6:63-65

New International Version (NIV)

63 The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you—they are full of the Spirit[a] and life. 64 Yet there are some of you who do not believe.” For Jesus had known from the beginning which of them did not believe and who would betray him. 65 He went on to say, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled them.”

John 6:37

New International Version (NIV)

37 All those the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away.

Mathew Henry
The Father's will is, that not one of those who were given to the Son, should be rejected or lost by him. No one will come, till Divine grace has subdued, and in part changed his heart; therefore no one who comes will ever be cast out. The gospel finds none willing to be saved in the humbling, holy manner, made known therein; but God draws with his word and the Holy Ghost; and man's duty is to hear and learn; that is to say, to receive the grace offered, and consent to the promise

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Nick

9/7/2013 00:29:50

Hi Penny,
I have a problem with some of the concepts of freewill that are bandied about.

Martin Luther said once, "If anyone ascribes salvation to the will, even in the least, he knows nothing of grace and has not understood Jesus Christ aright."

That is from an article here, http://www.reformationtheology.com/2007/11/understanding_free_will.php